Secretary-General Yang Xiuping met with Peng Lin, the Municipal Party Secretary of Leshan

On 21st September 2016, H.E. Mme. Yang, Secretary-General of ASEAN-China Centre (ACC), met with Mr. Peng Lin, Municipal Party Secretary of Leshan and exchanged views at Sichuan province. Mr. Tian Wen, Municipal Standing Committee Member and Executive Vice Mayor of Leshan, Mr. Gao Pengling, Municipal Standing Committee Member and Secretary-General, and Mr. Liang Hongjie, Vice Director of Standing Committee of Leshan Civic Congress attended the said meeting.

Secretary Peng, on behalf of Leshan Government, welcomed Secretary-General Yang to the 3rd Sichuan International Tourism Expo and extended his heartfelt thanks to ACC on promoting functional cooperation between Leshan and ASEAN in the areas of trade, culture and tourism. He said that tourism industry in Leshan had a good momentum and broad prospect for development. Leshan was awarded the title of the National Buddhist Cultural Tourism Destination by China National Tourism Administration. In recent years, the inbound tourism market in Leshan has developed rapidly which the amount of Southeast Asian tourists have been rising significant. In the year 2015, for example, Southeast Asian tourists accounted for more than 80% of the foreign tourists in Leshan. Leshan has mutual exchange and frequent visit with Thailand, the Guest of Honor of the 3rd Expo.  Secretary Peng wished that ACC could provide continued support on the functional cooperation and exchanges in various fields between Leshan and ASEAN States. Leshan would contribute greatly to the development of ASEAN-China relations.

Secretary-General Yang briefed on the development of ASEAN-China relations and the work of ACC. She emphasized that tourism was one of the priorities of the work. Leaders of ASEAN and China had reached consensus to announce the year 2017 as the ASEAN-China Year of Tourism Cooperation at the 19th ASEAN-China Summit to Commemorate the 25th Anniversary of ASEAN-China Dialogue Relations. The UN had also declared 2017 as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism Development. Thus, ACC would take this as an opportunity to further strengthen ASEAN-China tourism exchanges and cooperation as well as to continue to work with Leshan City to promote tourism of Leshan.